In 1492
a man from here
died at the hands 
of a man not from here

and once he’d passed,
he found himself speaking
a new language, one 
that had never existed till then.

Before that when a person died
they kept their own words and spoke
in the next life as they’d spoken 
in this one, and all was continuity.

Soon enough he was joined
by others, all unwilllingly
using the same new tongue,
and then there was a steady stream

and then there was a flood
and eventually, a genocide’s worth
of students practicing vocabulary
and syntax they’d never wanted to learn.

If you listen, you can hear them.
It doesn’t matter where you are. 
You won’t catch every word
but I think you’ll catch the drift.